How the Soul Stone Reveals the Hidden Theme of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’

This video contains spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War, a movie that opened four months ago and is already available to stream digitally. So if you haven’t seen it yet and magically managed to avoid spoilers, first off, impressive! And second, you’ve been warned.

In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos finally collects all six Infinity Stones, then snaps his fingers to obliterate half the universe. But the Marvel movie isn’t just about an epic war between the world’s best superheroes and an evil purple demigod. It’s all about the connection to the Soul Stone, the most spiritual of the six Marvel gems.

In ScreenCrush’s latest video from our series about the meanings behind the Infinity Stones of the MCU, ScreenCrush’s Ryan Arey breaks down the Soul Stone and how it reveals the hidden theme of Infinity War. As he explains, Thanos’ journey in the new movie is all about sacrifice, and his search for the Soul Stone is very similar to a biblical narrative, the Binding of Isaac. Check out the video above, and if you like Ryan’s theory about the Infinity Stones, be sure to watch his explainers about the Space Stone in The Avengers, the Mind Stone in Age of Ultron, the Power Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy, the Reality Stone in Thor: The Dark World, and the Time Stone in Doctor Strange.

If you liked those videos, be sure to check out the rest of our Marvel ones below, including our full MCU recap up to Avengers: Infinity War, our ranking of the film’s saddest deaths, and a video essay about why Thanos waited so long to steal the Infinity Stones. Plus, there’s tons more over at ScreenCrush’s YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to catch all our future episodes.